Item — HN Reader

The throbber was the beginning of developers gaslighting users.

It began as an indicator during long loads that your system hadn't frozen (because whatever process was running had to update it), and became a useless animation that communicated nothing.

1 comments

Yes, it tells you nothing. It has no relationship to what's going on at the other end, which may well also be nothing.

There’s at least one distinction I didn’t see in the article.

If a throbber is advanced by signals of progress or at least action, then it’s not useless and is arguably better than a progress bar that moves with unpredictable and uneven speed.

If a throbber is an animated gif displayed until something makes it go away, then it’s useless.

It tells you that the app is actually doing something and your tap didn't land outside the button.